ARCHEOLOGY AND PATRIOTISM: LONG TERM

CHINESE STRATEGIES IN THE SOUTH CHINA SEA1

By Franois-Xavier BonnetThe supreme art of war is to subdue the
enemy without fighting, Sun Tzu.
Supreme excellence consists of breaking the enemys resistance
without fighting, Sun Tzu.

Abstract :
Several authors writing about the Chinese claim to the Paracel
Islands have dated the first official Chinese expedition to these
islands to 1902. However, none of these writers have been able to
show any records of this expedition taking place. In fact, Chinese
records show that the expedition never happened. Instead, a secret
expedition took place decades later to plant false archaeological
evidence on the islands in order to bolster Chinas territorial claim.
The same strategy has been applied in the Spratly islands: the
sovereignty markers of 1946 had been placed, in fact, ten years
later, in 1956.
Introduction :
Professor Marwyn Samuels, in his well-known book Contest for
the South China Sea admonished western scholars who dated the
first Chinese expedition to the Paracels to 1909. Instead, he
asserted that the first expedition took place in 1902. According to
Samuels, this first inspection tour was directed by Admiral Li
Chun and was the first attempt to implement the 1887 convention
between France and China, asserting the rights of China over these
islands.2 Since the publication of Samuels seminal work, it has

become conventional to refer to this indisputable fact in books

and articles concerning the dispute in the South China Sea.
Nevertheless, none of the subsequent writers have been able to
substantiate this assertion.
Archeological campaigns of the 1970s and the grand
narrative:
Between 1974 and 1979, several archeological expeditions were
carried by the Chinese Peoples Liberation Army (PLA) and
archeologists in the Paracel Islands. Among the artifacts these
expeditions found were porcelains from different periods, the
remains of temples and several sovereignty markers. These
markers were dated 1902, 1912 and 1921. In 1973, the magazine
from Hong Kong, The Seventies, showed a picture of a 1902 tablet
found on an islet of the Paracels.3 The Hong Kong Standard
newspaper reported the findings on March 6 1979 in an article
titled Tablet proves ancient rights. These two articles, both
showing a picture of a 1902 tablet, became the only sources of
informations on the indisputable expedition of 1902 for scholars
like Hungdau Chiu and Choon-ho Park and Marwyn Samuels in
1982. Before 1979, neither western nor Chinese scholars had ever
mentioned the existence of a 1902 expedition. The only official
voyage recorded in the Qing annals was the inspection tour led by
Admiral Li Chun in 1909.
The ghostly expedition in the Paracel Islands :
There is a simple reason why no scholar has been able to unearth
any historical records of the 1902 expedition: it never happened.
Instead evidence of a 1902 voyage was concocted at a much later
date: 1937.

In June 1937, the chief of Chinese military region no. 9, Huang

Qiang, was sent to the Paracels with two missions: Firstly to check
reports that the Japanese were invading the islands and secondly to
reassert Chinese sovereignty over them. According to records of
his mission dated July 31 1937, he left Guangdong on June 19 and
arrived in the Paracels on June 23. The same day, he visited four
islands of the Paracels in the Amphitrite Group (Woody, Rocky,
Ling Zhou and Bei island). The following day, June 24, he left for
Hainan.
This short and confidential mission has been recounted by the
Chinese historians Han Zenhua, Lin Jin Zhi and Hu Feng Bin in
their seminal work Compilation of Historical Documents on our
Islands of the South Sea published in 1988.4 However, if they
published the report of July 31 1937, they forgot, consciously or
not, to publish the annex of this report. Fortunately, the
confidential annex of this report had been published in 1987 by the
Committee of Place Names of Guangdong Province in a book
titled Compilations of References on the Names of All our Islands
of Nan Hai. This annex gives the details of the actions of Huang
Qiang in the Paracels5.
In this annex, Qiang explained that, as planned, his boat was
loaded with 30 sovereignty markers. Among them, four dated from
the Qing dynasty, the others from 1912 (the first anniversary of the
Republic of China) and 1921. He carried no markers dated 1937,
however, because the mission was confidential. His team found the
four markers dating from the Qing dynasty, dated 1902, in the city
of Guangdong. According to the annex of his report, his team
buried the markers, noting their geographical coordinates, on the
four islands. On Bei Dao (North Island), they buried two markers
from 1902 and four from 1912. On the island of Ling Zhou, the
team buried one marker from 1902, one from 1912 and one from
1921. On Lin Dao (Woody Island), two markers from 1921 were
buried. Finally, on Shi Dao (Rocky Island), they deposited a single

marker, dated 1912.

In short, the 1937 expedition placed a total of 12 markers on the
islands, including three bearing the date 1902. They were forgotten
from 1937 to 1979 but then discovered between 1974 and 1979
by archeologists and PLA troops. This is almost certainly the
explanation for a mysterious sentence in Samuels book when he
wrote that these tablets of 1902 were thought to have been lost
during World War II6.
The mystery of the sovereignty markers in the Spratly islands :
Most of the books, articles, and official declarations mention that
China had retaken the Spratlys in 1946 from the Japanese and
planted sovereignty markers on several islands. This story has been
told for the first time by the Taiwanese Zhang Zhen Guo in his
book Trip to Nansha[Nansha xing] written in 1957 but published
in 1975.7
Zhang, who was a leader of the Taiwanese expedition of 1956 in
the Spratlys (against Thomas Cloma), wrote that during the 1946
expedition led by the commander Mai Yun Yu, the party took
control of three islands, namely Taiping dao (Itu Aba island), Nam
Wei dao (Spratly island) and Xi Yue dao (West York island). On
these three islands, the team of Mai Yun Yu planted the sovereignty
markers, dated 1946.8
However, when the book of Zhang was published in 1975, the
commander Mai Yun Yu was still alive and read it. This was a
shock to him! In fact, he recognized that while his team went to Itu
Aba island on December 1946, destroyed Japanese markers and
planted two sovereignty markers (North and South of the island),
they never went to Spratly island and West York island.
In fact, according to the official records, when the Filipino Thomas

Cloma declared in 1956 his ownership on the Spratly islands

(Freedomland), Taipei sent patrols three times to these islands (2
boats from June 2 to 14, 3 boats from June 29 to July 22 and 2
boats from September 24 to October 5). During these patrols, the
soldiers had the ceremony of the flag and erected sovereignty
markers on the three islands of Itu Aba, Spratly and West York.
However, as a trick, these markers were dated 1946 but were
brought 10 years later, in 1956, to the Nansha.9
Archeology and patriotism : The politics of sovereignty
markers
Were the archeologists sincere when they found the markers in the
Paracels ? Or had they been coached by the PLA who knew the
story? We cant know. Nevertheless, if we add the episode of the
Spratlys, we can see a more elaborate and systematic strategy of
manipulating the records. These two episodes do show the limits of
relying on archeological artifacts to try to resolve the territorial
dispute. Any artifact could be genuine (coming from the museum
for example), but buried in a much later time. In the psychological
war over the South China Sea islands, this trick can become a fact.
This seems to be what had happened in these cases. The myths had
appeared in many works written in English and reached an
international audience. In the meantime, it seems plausible that
these myths would be well known by few researchers with
knowledge of Mandarin and a group of Chinese experts. In all, it
suggests that patriotic archaeology is deeply flawed and that
experts should be wary before relying on it to pass judgment on the
territorial disputes.

This paper has been presented at the Southeast Asia Sea conference, Ateneo Law
Center, Makati, March 27 2015.

Samuels, Marwyn S, Contest for the South China Sea, New York: Methuen,
1982, p.53
3

The Seventies no3 March 1973 quoted in Hungdah Chiu and Choon-Ho Park,
Legal Status of the Paracel and Spratly islands, Ocean Development and
International Law, 1975, p. 25
4

HAN Zhen Hua, Lin Jin Zhi and Hu Feng Bin (edit), [Wo guo nan hai shi liao hui
bian] (Compilation of Historical Documents of our Nan Hai islands), Dong
fang/Chu ban she, 1988, p.210
5

Committee of Place Names of the Guangdong Province [Guangdong sheng di

ming wei yuan hui], Compilation of references of the names of all the South Sea
islands [Nan Hai zhu dao di ming zi liao hui bian], Guangdong Map Publishing
Company [Guangdong sheng di tu chu ban she], 1987, p.289
6

Samuels, p.53

Committee, 1987, p.290

Committee, 1987, p.290

Committee, 1987, p.291

Bibliography:
Committee of Place Names of the Guangdong Province
[Guangdong sheng di ming wei yuan hui], Compilation of
references of the names of all the South Sea islands [Nan Hai zhu
dao di ming zi liao hui bian], Guangdong Map Publishing
Company [Guangdong sheng di tu chu ban she], 1987.
HAN Zhen Hua, Lin Jin Zhi and Hu Feng Bin (edit), [Wo guo nan
hai shi liao hui bian] (Compilation of Historical Documents of our
Nan Hai islands), Dong fang/Chu ban she, 1988.
Samuels, Marwyn S, Contest for the South China Sea, New York:
Methuen, 1982

About the author :

Franois-Xavier Bonnet is a geographer and a Research Associate
of the French Institute for Research on Contemporary Southeast
Asia (Irasec). He has published, among others, Geopolitics of
Scarborough Shoal, Irasecs discussion paper 14, November 2012,
http://www.irasec.com/ouvrage34 email: mpdbonnet@yahoo.com

PICTURE OF
MARKERS

THE

1902

SOVEREIGNTY

Steles from the Guangxu reign (1882-1902) on one of the Xisha

IslandSource
:
Thomas
H.
Hahn
Docu-Images.
http://hahn.zenfolio.com/xisha/h1D468115#h1d468115.

SECRET MISSION OF JUNE 1937

Source : Committee of Place Names of the Guangdong Province

[Guangdong sheng di ming wei yuan hui], Compilation of

references of the names of all the South Sea islands [Nan Hai zhu
dao di ming zi liao hui bian], Guangdong Map Publishing
Company [Guangdong sheng di tu chu ban she], 1987, p.289.